Neologism: Retrochromaticize or Rechrome

 To retrochromaticize is to color events of the past with the sentiments of the present. In casual conversation, rechrome is an acceptable substitute.

As an example, if you had enjoyable times with a person, then experienced a falling out and looked back on all the good as now bad, you would be retrochromaticizing the relationship.

The brain is good at diminishing the intensity of pain memories, e.g. childbirth. This is an example of retrochromaticization, or rechroming, where perhaps the body's innate desire to reproduce rechromes the pain memory associated with prior reproduction.

I know this combines a Latin and a Greek root, but I tried both retrocolorize and anachromaticize, and neither of those had the same bite.

Sermonaic

If a demonaic is someone possessed by a demon, is a sermonaic someone possessed by a sermon? Could this be said of someone who's been whipped into a frenzy by a preacher?

Anatomy of a Neologism: Obesiteur

I found myself in a quandary some time ago. How could I refer to a fat person in a clinical manner without using more than a single word? We obviously already have terms like fatty and gargantua, but those carry a negative connotation. I wanted something neutral.

Since obese comes from the French obésité, I thought it fitting to tack on the -eur suffix, giving us obesiteur. Now, the problem is that in French, this is a masculine ending. If we want a corresponding feminine ending, we'd get obesitress, or in the French spelling, obesitrice. I'm not sure how much I like gendering nouns in English, so I'd probably relegate my usage to the male-only.

As you've guessed, the French comes from Latin (obesitas), so another valid construction would be using the Latin agent suffixes -or and -rix, giving us obesitor and obesitrix. I will admit, I cackled for a good thirty seconds after "obesitrix" came into my mind. I could only think of things like, "He bowed genuflect to truckle and beg, but her ears were shut and her mouth open. Eyes wide like a horse in terror, he swiftly fell into the maw of the obesitrix." I blame it on the BDSM community.

If we're dipping into the crass, I can likely think of many more words, obeast being chief among them, but let us forbear. What else might ring neutral enough? Paunch-bearer? The hyphenation feels like cheating. I get a chuckle out of obeseling due to its oxymoronic nature. Sebacle (sebaceous debacle)? Oh no, we've veered once more into the pejorative... I would probably also run amiss by suggesting impressionist, one who leaves impressions (as they walk). My better judgment would prevent me from suggesting chairbane and expandrake (the ever-increasing dragon).

It might also be fun to come up with a term for a skinny person. Spareling, skeleton, leaniac, exhiribtionist (one who exhibits their ribs), svelton. I do like svelton, but that comes with a connotation of elegance that isn't endemic to all skinny people.

Young Folks, Old Folks, Everybody Come

I've always enjoyed singing the alternate versions of Bible stories. The chorus goes

Young folks, old folks, everybody come
Come join the Sunday School and have a lot of fun
Please check your chewing gum and razors at the door
And you'll hear some Bible stories like you never heard before

So without further ado, here are some verses I've come up with

Israel had some children, they made a few mistakes
Complained against Jehovah, so He rustled up some snakes
Couple bites and the kids said if He fixed it they'd applaud
So Moses grabbed a serpent and he wrapped it round his rod 

Lot and his wife found Sodom fairly cosy
Till one day they had guests and the neighbors got too nosy
Well, a pesky crowd around the door began a-hammering
But even though they squinted they still couldn't see a thing 

Lot had a couple daughters, and, boy, they liked to date
But they ran out of prospects when their city burned to flakes
They looked upon their father and they said, "Hey, you're a man"
It took a couple drinks but now they fill a twelve-seat van

Noah lived a long time, six hundred years or so
A whole life at a desk job had made it go real slow
One day he saw some elephants and got an affixation
So he started herding animals and changed his occupation

Saul was a tall man, he also was the king
But, boy, did he get jealous of that kid who had the sling
One day he grabbed a spear and said, "David, you should know
That you're not the only person in this castle who can throw"

Abraham and Isaac went marching up a hill
Cause that's the primest real estate when you've got things to kill
Well Isaac got to looking and said, "Where's the sacrifice?"
Abraham said, "Snap a selfie, make it look real nice"

The children of Israel out in the wilderness
They stuffed their mouths with Mana and made a crummy mess
When they were done they smacked their lips and said, "Our mouths are dry"
So Moses fought a boulder and he made that boulder cry

A Quiet Place of Inconsistencies

Saw this movie and was confused as to why it's been getting such good reviews. It has an interesting premise, but it's replete with inconsistencies and idiocies.

First thing that's hard to believe, where is the government? I don't care what sort of armor these creatures have, we have intercontinental ballistic missiles. You know that they're immediately attracted to sound. Blast some metalcore in some remote area, wait for a ton of them to come, then nuke 'em. Or, have a drone blaring out the Numa Numa song over a volcano. No weakness? Their weakness is nuclear warheads.

While still on the topic of the aliens, how in the world can they navigate the world (running through the forest, walking through a house including stairs), but they can't find prey unless the prey specifically makes noise? Stupid.

And the creatures can tear through a silo wall in under a second, but can only superficially wound an old truck? The aliens move really fast...unless they're near a main character. Then they slowly stalk around. More examples of creating rules then ignoring them, which just makes for a shoddy story.

Has no one coughed? No snoring, sneezing, farting, burping, tripping and falling, toe stubbing (they are going barefoot), choking on food? How do they farm (especially harvesting) or build things (can't use hammers or saws)? Where are they getting all this electricity? Generators are super loud, and they require fuel (making fuel is a loud process). It's especially hard to believe the deaf girl hasn't accidentally made some noise at some point. They try not to make creaking noises while walking in the house, but houses, especially old ones, make noises all the time. They put sand everywhere. Does it never rain there?

John Krasinski shows his son you can shout if there's a louder noise. Why don't they move next to a huge river or waterfall? Or find a holm in the middle of a river? Or try and find an underground bunker? Or at least move somewhere with carpet! Why not have speakers in the forest constantly playing loud sounds, perhaps even switching which speaker is playing before the creatures arrive, sending them into a never-ending sprint? I mean, they do have access to unlimited electricity. No, the only possibility is some rockets that last less than a minute and your child has to set of by hand.

I hate movies where the conflict is based off stupidity. Instead of saying, hey, let's try and keep ourselves and our current children alive, the main characters decide, let's have an effing baby. A BABY. A machine that only produces excrement and noise. Are you gonna keep it in that box for four years?

For how important silence is, they really give their little kid a long leash at the start of the movie. Another conflict based on stupidity. If they were truly worried about their lives, they would police that kid a lot more. Also, when the kid has the loud rocket, Krasinski is sprinting, making lots of noise with his feet. Why does the creature only attack the kid? Why don't more creatures come?

The nail. When Emily Blunt snags her bag on the nail, it catches the head. She pulls it, and somehow it switches to the point sticking up? What?

Okay, that's plot inconsistencies, now I'll touch on a couple technical issues. The beginning took way too long. It establishes pretty quickly that you can't make noise. Half an hour later...we're still going over the fact that you can't make noise. C'mon, assume a little more intelligence in the viewer.

Jump scares are lowbrow horror, and this movie was full of them. Worse, the majority of them were fake-outs. I'm convinced the bloody hand jump scare was an inside joke put in by Krasinski haha. It's just way too cliché otherwise.

Like I said, interesting concept. I liked that it was a family too. Emily Blunt's acting during the labor/birth scene was phenomenal. But way too many inconsistencies to call it a good movie. I think a lot of people are conflating their feelings for the actors' past work with the quality of the film in question.

The Things I Didn't Like About Black Panther

This is going to be my second post griping about a popular movie. Who knows if it'll become a recurring thing. Ha, by me doing this, it's almost certain that someone will absolutely shred my books apart in the same way someday. Oh well, I'll have deserved it.

Advanced technology, backward government

I find it very unlikely that a country with their level of technology would be led by an absolute monarch. What's more, a monarch who's decided through trial by combat. You're telling me that over their thousand-plus-year history, not one king has been a warmonger? Felt the desire to conquer with their superior technology? That every man who rose to power through their might-makes-right methodology has always had peaceful intentions only?

Vibranium power creep

It seemed like every time I blinked, vibranium gained some new fantastic ability. Invincibility. Medical panacea. Gravity defiance. At this point I'm more interested in finding out what this glowing deus ex machina can't do.

T'challa "dies"

This isn't necessarily a mistake, but more of a "why would you do something so painfully obvious?" As soon as Killmonger challenged him, you knew they were going to fight on the waterfall and T'challa would "die" by going over, only to later come back and defeat his cousin. I think that could have been circumvented to a decent degree if the combat wasn't on the edge of a waterfall. 

Purple drank

So they get these superpowers through purple flower punch. I can't recall it ever being explained why only one person at a time can become superhuman. Why not make the whole country into black panthers? And you know, perhaps the comics clear this up, but that doesn't help when we're judging the movie on its own merits.

Obligatory car chase

Why are you giving chase in cars? You have an invisible, flying vibranium ship! Also, the general throws her spear, it lodges in the road, and it brings an entire moving car to an immediate stop. Then her car gets exploded, and she's surfing down the road on the door. For some reason, her slamming her spear into the ground doesn't stop her for many yards. Guess she has more momentum than an entire SUV. Additionally, they went on a mission to get a little piece of vibranium, but then she left the first spear in the road?

Killmonger's plan

Here's a dude who graduated Annapolis early (you can't start until 17, and you have to adhere to their strict 4-year schedule, but he graduated at 19?), then he graduated MIT, and for some reason he can't wrap his head around why arming random people (he obviously doesn't support background checks) with WMD is a bad idea? C'mon, if you're going to make his logic so faulty, don't give him such an intelligent background.

All these people are not united under a single banner, save some vague notions. What happens to the ones who don't want to follow your program? This isn't organized like the military; there are no options for reprimand. As soon as you give out those weapons it's a free-for-all. There might be some cohesion at first, but it'll fall apart.

Killmonger's plan II

Why even bother with Korea and the CIA? Killmonger has no compunctions over murder, so why didn't he kill his team off in the UK and just fly straight to Wakanda with Klaue's body? Going to Korea and doing a deal with the CIA seem like ridiculously unnecessary extra steps. "But then T'challa and crew wouldn't have dispatched and faced off with Klaue." Yes, exactly. This whole plot point is there only because the plot needed it, not because it makes sense.

Final battle is a rip-off of Phantom Menace

1. The natives are having a giant face-off involving blue force shields on a grassy hill.

2. Out-of-his-element pilot has to fly a system he gets unwittingly forced into, then destroys ships, saving the planet.

3. The hero faces off against the villain in face-to-face, color-coded combat, battling on thin platforms above a high drop, and the combatants keep getting walled off from each other.

Duplicate ending scenes

Why would you have the movie end with T'challa smiling to himself, thinking about Wakanda, then have it end exactly the same way again after a few minutes of credits? That was weird.

Polymath sister

I know it's a common trope to have one "science super expert" in a movie, but it still annoys me. People spend their whole (very intelligent) lives getting PhDs and doing research in very narrow fields at the exclusion of learning about other things, yet she manages to know and do everything all while being socially normal?

Northern lights

So T'challa drinks the Kool-aid and goes to the ancestral plane. Why are there (admittedly cool-looking) auroras? This is supposed to be a place of pure tradition. Did the ancestors come from northern Europe or something? Felt very out-of-place. Just imagine if this had been a movie where a viking visits his ancestral plane and there were purple zebras.

Leave the child

What exactly was the issue with them taking the child (Killmonger) back to Wakanda? You just tell him the truth, that his father betrayed Wakanda, then when confronted about it, he tried to kill another citizen in front of the king and was killed in defense. Better than leaving a kid with knowledge of Wakanda out rogue in the world.

Recap

There were a few other bits and bobs that I omitted (insignificant things like hands being in different places or window tint varying from cut to cut; those things happen even in the best movies). But there were too many other things that keep me from saying this was a great movie. Definitely had some cool stuff (I loved the visuals for the most part), but nevertheless.

A Better Ending to Harry Potter

Click to skip the introduction

Harry Potter had some great characters, ones that compelled you to read about them. The worldbuilding isn't too special. We've seen magical boarding schools, saying cantrips to invoke magic, using a channeling agent (wand) to perform magic, centaurs, trolls, potions, divination, herbology, teleportation, transfiguration, etc., etc (quidditch, however, was an excellent innovation). In many places the worldbuilding is just awful. For example, in a world where the government controls a reliable method of time travel, there should be no crime. You know exactly when and where each crime takes place. Maybe you should pop by five minutes before and throw a cheeky binding spell on them with those wands you got.

But one of the things I really didn't like was the ending. A book is only as good as its promises' fulfillment. Granted, the primary promise of Harry Potter is that Harry will defeat the Dark Lord. But I felt like there was a level of "Harry will become a powerful wizard" thrown in there too, which didn't happen. He learned like four spells and won by a fluke of wand ownership. I can't believe I read over a million words just to come to that conclusion.

A note on wand ownership: kids practice dueling and such all the time. Wand ownership in Hogwarts should be royally effed. Why wouldn't they have practice wands for such circumstances? This is another example of shoddy worldbuilding—an instance where she introduced a new element without considering how it affected that which came before.

The love magic/sacrificial protection was also a mess. Everyone was so dumbfounded when Harry survived as a child. Has no one in this world ever sacrificed themselves for another person? James sacrificing himself didn't save Lilly? The implementation at the end of book seven was even worse. You have to die in order for love magic to activate. Harry chooses to come back and it somehow still affects the Hogwartsers.

Harry Potter: "I was ready to die to stop you from hurting these people —"
Lord Voldemort: "But you did not!"
Harry Potter: "— I meant to, and that's what did it. I've done what my mother did. They're protected from you. Haven't you noticed how none of the spells you put on them aren't binding? You can't torture them. You can't touch them."

What kind of counterintuitive hogwash is that? "I meant to die. Duh, why else would I have chosen to come back? Lol, Voldiboi so stuped."

Alright. So I've outlined some of my problems with the ending. My biggest one is the wand ownership fluke. It just made the victory feel so cheap; felt like it betrayed the promise of the whole series. I'll reiterate, the promise of Harry Potter is, Harry will defeat Voldemort. Harry won because he said "expeliarmus" once to Draco. That's an exceedingly interchangeable cog; anyone could have done that. It really felt like it was chance and not Harry that defeated Voldemort. Like, we've been building up the whole series on this promise, and then it goes and tries to shove the wrong puzzle piece into the hole.

It felt like the type of ending you'd see in a comedy. Like Douglas Adams would have come up with the same thing. You've spent all this time prepping to fight the Dark Lord, then you defeat him by accident.

Without further ado, here's my shot at writing a more satisfying ending (obviously an outline).

A Better Ending

Harry goes to Voldemort, offers himself, and enters the crossroads of twilight where he chills with Dumbledore. During the chat, Albus says Harry can choose to return should he wish. Harry says no, that would negate his sacrifice (perhaps even mentioning the love magic). Dumbledore smiles and says, "Alright, let's be off then." They get up to leave King's Cross.

Then Voldemort appears.

It's the fraction of his soul that was horcruxed away inside Harry all these years.

"Death never felt so good, did it, Potter?" (Or whatever evil line he says.) "You realize your sacrifice is a farce, don't you? It doesn't matter if I can't directly harm your little friends, I have deatheaters plenty for that. We will break them. Enslave them. Use them to kill and rise to power across the world."

Voldemort continues to talk and reveals something (I'm not sure what, could just be general goading like above), which causes Harry realize he needs to go back. He tells Dumbledore, who is about to send him on his way.

Then Voldemort attacks.

Harry duels the fraction of the Dark Lord's soul on the crossroads of twilight—the fraction that he's been fighting all these years. Unbridled, raw magic flows between them, but Voldemort is only a fraction of what he should be, so he can't tap into the magic as well. Harry obliterates the soul fragment, then turns to Dumbledore.

"I can't let them fight this alone. But I need something I can do. Please, professor, there must be some dueling tip or other magic trick you can give me. If I time everything right, I can show up and defeat Voldemort before the deatheaters even know what's happening. Even if they kill me again after that, I need to save my friends."

"Well, Harry, things are a bit fuzzy on this side of thing. Tell me, does Voldemort currently possess the Elder Wand?"

"Yes."

"Ah. If I'm not mistaken, you disarmed Malfoy some weeks ago, yes?"

"I did."

"And it wasn't all that long ago young Draco disarmed me. I wonder who then is the proper owner of the Elder Wand?"

"Well wouldn't it be Voldemort, because he did just kill me."

"Harry, correct me if I'm wrong, but you just defeated Voldemort, did you not?"

Hope swells in Harry's chest. "Professor, are you saying—"

Dumbledore smiles. "Go, Harry. There may yet be some help you can give."

End chapter. The next chapter starts with Voldemort and friends saying come join us to the goodfolk of Hogwarts. When no one does, battle breaks out. The rest of the chapter is a montage of different characters locked in war, and the whole time you're thinking, where the heck is that Potter boy?

Next chapter. Harry opens his eyes and takes in what's going on. He spots Voldemort not too far away, gets up, and shouts, "Tom."

The Dark Lord turns and freaks out. "Potter? How in the acromantula tits are you alive?"

"Magic, you dumb twat. Now give me my wand."

"Your wand? How about I give you this, avada kedavra!"

A blast of green energy flies at and bounces off Harry. Voldemort recoils in shock and shoots another killing spell. Harry advances.

"I said, give me my wand," Harry says as death curses continue to glance off him.

"How are you doing that?" Voldemort says between green blasts.

"I said—" Harry reaches out his hand and performs a silent accio spell. The Elder Wand leaps from the Dark Lord's fingers to Harry's. "Give. Me. My. Wand."

Tom Riddle falls back, arm flung in front of his face.

"When people ask about today, I'll simply tell them you died as you lived. With a flash of green. AVADA KEDAVRA."

Recap

Obviously this is just a hash-up of ideas, and it's just a first draft at that. There are definitely things that could be made better. But I hope you see the merits of this idea.

1. This delivers on the promise of the series. It makes the revelation of wand ownership a lot more impactful. It's much less of a shoehorned-in, nearly after-the-fact "twist," and more of an exciting, actionable reveal. Makes defeating Voldemort a choice rather than an accident.
2. This gets rid of the love magic problem at the end. No weird, lumpy logic there. No, "I broke the fundamental rule of sacrificial protection, but it still works anyway."
3. Harry actually gets to fight and defeat Voldemort—twice. The first time is an intense magic battle of unbridled proportions. The second is a straightforward, "you are puny, I am mighty" smackdown. It's not won on a fluke, but because Harry actually was the better wizard (at the crossroads, which translates to the Battle of Hogwarts).
4. It allows Harry to directly defeat the fraction of Voldemort's soul that had been lodged within him his entire life. I think the whole "Voldemort kills his own horcrux" was clever. I think it would have been more clever if Harry had planned it (honestly he might have, it's been awhile since I read the books). I also think it would be very satisfying if Harry was able to defeat it himself.
5. Also, I personally am partial to the idea of Harry using the killing spell once, to finally defeat the Dark Lord.

What do you think? Have any ideas to add?

Mellonostalgia

This is a post merely to document a new word I've coined. Mellonostalgia is a combination of the Greek mellon (future) and nostalgia. It is a wistful longing for things that have not yet been. Things that, perhaps, may never be.

Some examples. Your friend is going to go to school for a degree that you have gotten. Your brain cycles through all the possibilities they have before them, all the things which you did and wish you had done, and perhaps your heart hurts in anticipation on their behalf. This is mellonostalgia.

Someone you loved deeply breaks up with you. Your world is shattered, and your mind flashes through the life you could have had together. The small moments you might have shared. This is mellonostalgia. A rueful remembrance of the future.

My Issues with Episode VIII

Image Source

I saw this movie a couple days ago and just needed some place to catalog all the reasons I thought it wasn't up to quality.

Holdo withholds info, spurring Finn toward a useless expedition that gets loads of people killed.

• There's no reason Space Cadet Jane needed to be all secretive about their plans.
• Finn's entire plot during this movie was useless, and Rose felt forced as a character.
• They can't get the code breaker's contact info from Maz, or even try to look it up online? They have to physically fly to his planet (which happens to be close enough) and get him?
• The casino place, which ended up not even being used, got more exposition than any other part of the movie.
• Meeting the code breaker was garbage. There's how many jail cells, and you get put in one with a guy who happens to be able to break through First Order encryption on the fly?
• Their entire mission to save their friends is jeopardized beyond redemption, but a shot at redemption comes along and their response is, "Nope." They don't even consider it.
• BB-8 takes down a bunch of guards. Felt like it leaned too heavily on comedy and not on "this could actually happen."
• Rose taking the saddle off the fathier and saying, "Now it was worth it," is such an eye-rolling moment. For all they know, their mission was a complete failure. All their friends are going to die. But you took a saddle off one animal that's going to be rounded up in an hour, and now it's worth it?
• Phasma was built up to be this big deal, then she poofed after like a minute.
• The giant First Order ship gets destroyed by the hyperspace jump. Everbody in armor: dead. Finn and Rose: A-okay.
• Even though Finn, Rose, and Poe do a thing that gets people killed, there are no repercussions for them (admittedly they did it because of poor leadership).
• At the very least, the First Order would have been able to see the heat signal from the escape ships' exhaust (not to mention Finn and Rose's ship). They (the First Order) didn't need to make a deal with the code breaker.
• Rose crashes into Finn. I'll ignore whether or not this was a good decision plot-wise and simply ask, how in the world did she reach him? They have the exact same crappy speeders. He's going at full throttle. She turned away and has to circle back. There's no way she can catch up to him, let alone t-bone him.
• The kiss felt very "we're going to jam two mismatched puzzle pieces together." It didn't fit. There wasn't really a buildup to it. No chemistry between characters.
• How did they get back to the base? It took the cruisers quite a bit to get out there going at high speeds. Somehow Finn drags Rose back in like five minutes, and all without any enemies noticing and shooting them.
• All in all, Finn, a great character, was wasted in this film. His plotline was supposed to be about failure, but instead of him failing it was the writer(s).

"Somebody has to stay behind."

• No, you dumb cow, nobody has to stay behind. This is why they invented the computer. I promise the autopilot can handle flying in a straight line. If not, I promise you can control it remotely.
• Side note: this was a problem in Rogue One, too. People not knowing how computers work. "We have to get this hard drive physically to the top of this tower in order to transfer the info." No, that is absolutely not how computers work.
• Even if somebody did have to stay behind, it shouldn't have been Holdo. Leia or Ackbar would have been better. Someone who we care about should have been the focus of the most cinematically stunning scene in the movie.
• I couldn't tell if the hyperspace thing was her plan all along, or if she just thought of it as she was watching her fellows get obliterated. Her insistence that someone (her) stay behind makes me think it was in her plan. If so, why did she wait while the others got killed?
• The hyperspace kamikaze, though extremely cool, presents the issue of, why doesn't everybody just have hyperspace missiles? Why build humongous ships when someone could just hyperspace through it and shred it?

Let's make the main conflict be a whale hunt.

• Where were the TIE fighters? They've already shown that TIE fighters can damage the rebel ships. Why did they call them back if they're so dead-set on taking their enemies down? Poe can take down a dreadnought's entire weapons systems with one X-wing, but the First Order can't spare a single TIE fighter?
• It's been pointed out to me that they knew the rebels would run out of fuel (not sure how the FO knew), so it was economically better for them to wait it out than to expend ships taking them down. We know the FO has resources though (they built a planet that could eat stars and have loads of ships and troops), so I don't wholly buy that argument. Also, they destroyed a bunch of rebel fighter ships already. My response to "we can't cover you from this distance" is, once again, computers. Self-driving ships.
• Why in the eff were lasers fired in space arcing in a parabolic trajectory? I know they do things that don't always gel with physics, but some (lightsabers) it's assumed there's a technological reason for it. The arcing lasers just felt like bad design.
• I refuse to believe they're using anything except fusion or fission to power these ships (since they have limited amounts of fuel, so they're not using radiant energy). That being said, the fuel should have lasted a lot longer.
• Why couldn't the First Order have called in more ships? I'm sure you could have some hyperspace in ahead of the rebels and come at them the opposite way.

Snoke? Snoke who?

• Here's an incredibly strong force user that's been around since the Empire. How did he rise to power? Where was he during Palpatine's reign? Response: Lol, why would anyone want to know that?
• Luke says that Snoke already had too strong a hold on Ben Solo. How did they come in contact? Internet chat room? 
• Snoke, who can arrange force Skype sessions for other people, who can levitate other force users, who can read minds, etc. etc., doesn't notice that Anakin Skywalker's lightsaber is being turned through the force four inches away from him? Not believable.
• How are we supposed to care that Kylo took him out if we don't even know anything about him?

The Amazing Flying Leia!

• What on earth was that?
• You go unconscious pretty fast in space. Not to mention she was already unconscious from the blast (but she wasn't really hurt?). But somehow she came out of that and was able to use the force to fly back to the ship? Not believable.
• We've known she's force sensitive, but she's never actually used the force before in her life. Now that she's unconscious in the cruel vacuum of space, she can suddenly use it.
• Also, how did they get her back in the ship? When they opened that latch, it would have sucked them out into space, not to mention their oxygen.
• I wish there would have been some follow-up to her suddenly using the force. They completely ignore that it happened.

Luke.

• I feel like they weren't really true to his character. I know it's been a long time and things happen, but still. He's always been the guy who defends others and jumps in to help where he can. Why would he run away from Ben Solo alone when he had all these other apprentices?
• We never get to see his reaction to Han dying. It just cut away from that. Obviously not as important as drinking green milk from tumid space teats.
• He's cut himself off to the force for how long, and as soon as he opens himself up to it again he can do amazing feats like astral project into the physical plane across bazillions of miles?
• There was no reason for him to die. "Oh boy, what a hard day's work. Guess I'll die." The logic behind it is very shaky.
• So he's lost his hope. Okay. His turnaround for regaining hope seemed kind of quick.
• When he saw Leia, I really wanted him to say, "Wanna make out again?"

Force power creep.

• I'm a little iffy on the power creep we've seen going on with the force. The limits keep getting blurred (not that they were crazy well defined to begin with, but it was never so grand).
• Being able to force two other people into a distance-disregarding face-to-face talk is pretty big. Being able to astral project and talk and give dice is big.
• When is it going to stop? How preternatural are force wielders going to get by the end? 
• Some foreshadowing for new abilities would be nice, at the very least. I guess Yoda hit Luke with his cane, maybe showing that force ghosts can interact with the physical plane.

We need more humor!

• Star Wars has always had humor, but it feels out of place in this movie. Big explosion, lost a lot of people and equipment, Poe flies back, BB-8 flies by with a comedic scream (of course neither of them got injured when everyone else did).
• Maybe they're going to merge Marvel and Star Wars at some point, so they're prepping audiences by duplicating the humor.

How do I Reyact to this?

• I did like Rey better in this movie. She was much less of an I-can-do-everything type.
• Her training . . . was essentially no training. It was Luke proving that he can complain about things. And that's it.
• Didn't like how they built up this "darkness under the island," then when she goes down there it's a mirror that shows . . . a reflection of her. Wow. So amaze. Dark side so mystery.
• I reeaally wanted her to join Kylo Ren. I guess it's okay that she didn't, but can you imagine?
• How did she get off the ship and back to the Falcon? Do none of these ships have cameras?

Kylo Ren is good.

• He's my favorite character. Great performance by Adam. Great conflict and weaknesses.
• He was really the only one in the movie that acknowledged that Han Solo had died. Kind of disappointing.
• Where are the other apprentices Kylo took with him?
• There were no lightsaber duels in this movie. Almost one between Kylo and Luke. Almost one between Kylo and Rey. But no. This was the least lightsaber-intensive Star Wars movie ever.
• He doesn't notice that Luke is holding Anakin Skywalker's lightsaber, which was just destroyed by Kylo and Rey. I can write this off as him being blinded by rage, but still.
• He says that Rey killed Snoke. Once again, are there no cameras!?

I think that about wraps it up, though I'm sure there were more things (like them saying godspeed). My question is, what happened? Did Rian Johnson and everyone at Disney start taking stupid pills? Sure, there are plenty of things that you could argue are stylistic choices, but there are lots of things that are just straight up defects. Can Episode IX save this trilogy? Yes. Will it? I doubt it.

The Omission of Transmission

There's an issue I see a lot when certain scientific topics come up. I don't think it can properly be termed a logical fallacy, though by brute definition it certainly qualifies. I think a more appropriate expression would be conviction tempered with ignorance. At any rate, the issue is as follows:

Someone reads/sees a piece of media about some technology/substance. The video makes a claim on what could be done with this technology, often with the implicit, "If only those dang capitalists and politicians weren't so stubborn and greedy!" Our enthusiast, who in all honesty has society's best interests at heart, now forms an emotional connection with the assertion and becomes belligerent when confronted with opposing views.

Two examples: power and cancer cures. I see media all the time claiming things to the tune of, a solar farm yea big in thus a location could provide the world's energy needs. Maybe it's algae. Maybe it's solar panels in orbit. Maybe it's a crop of wind turbines. I also see media, or just people, shouting that thus and such a substance kills cancer, but the government keeps it illegal.

Where our sanguine enthusiasts err is in transmission. They fail to understand how massive, long distance power works. If you were to try and power the world from one solar farm in the Sahara, all you would accomplish is heating a lot of wire. They fail to grasp that simply because something kills cancer doesn't mean that it can do so in vivo without compromising the well-being of the host. Fire kills cancer. Toss a hunk of cancer into a vat of gasoline, light it up, then try and tell me the cancer's still alive after everything's burned down.

The unfortunate thing, I've found, is that though most of these people are well-meaning, they won't let go of their convictions once presented with counter evidence, because they've welded themselves to their convictions with emotion. The trick is to disillusion them in a friendly manner so that they won't hate you when they don't believe you. An even greater trick is to disillusion yourself regardless of the manner.

Stoneslayer Draft 2, Beta Reads, and The University Vignettes

By way of update, a little over a week ago I finished the second draft of Stoneslayer. I had hoped to reduce the word count under 120k, but I ended up making it about 450 words longer, ending at 123.5k. I've sent it to a ton of beta readers (~20). We'll see whether they get to the end :) So far their suggestions have been to add more...

The University Vignettes:
I suppose I should make a mention of a longstanding project I've had called The University Vignettes (working title). I wrote a random kernel of a short story back in March 2015, which I rediscovered in August 2016 and finished. That project became "The Future's Price", a commentary on the cost of higher education through a very grim fantasy story. You can listen to a reading I did here.

But it doesn't end there. I got the idea to make a series of commentaries in this fashion, which I've tentatively titled The University Vignettes. There will be five short stories all told. They're all separate stories (well, #'s 1 and 4 are from the same POV), but they reference each other and focus around a particular event at the university, the breaking of the Jewel of Tusco (a giant stained-glass window).

Just the other day I finished the second of these stories, named "To What Degree?" The alpha reader reactions have been overwhelmingly positive, which is encouraging. This is a slow burning project though, so there's no telling when exactly I'll make it to the next vignettes. I do already have the epilogue written. I'd like to say I'll finish before the end of summer, but with the helter-skelter angle I've taken with this I'm much more comfortable saying the end of the year. Once they're all done, I'm going to publish them in a little anthology.

Evoking the Fantastical Milieu: Naming

This post will focus specifically on names and words.

Names are powerful. Glance over the two following lists of names:

• Daniel, Samuel, Adam, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Joshua, David, Zach, Aaron, Benjamin, Jonathan
• Abdon, Dishon, Jerah, Maher-shalal-hash-baz, Phallu, Urijah, Vophsi, Zeror

If you were raised in a biblically influenced country, the first list will likely seem mundane to you. However, the second list will immediately transport one to a land far away and so unlike our own. In case you didn't guess, all of the above names are from the Bible. If you know your audience, you can evoke impressions and emotions by choosing the right names.

In The Dinosaur Lords, Victor Milan lifts names straight from Spanish (Spañol), French (Francés), German (Alemán), English (Anglysh), and Russian (Slavo). He references countries and principalities in approximately the same locations as Spain, France, Germany, England, and Russia. The primary difference from our world is that they use dinosaurs for warfare. I personally would have preferred an alternate world rather than just an alternate history, but Milan did what he did so that he could immediately put impressions of these countries in our heads without having to devote much time for cultural backgrounds. A shortcut, if you're not looking to build a whole world.

Your names need a sense of uniformity in their foreignness. One option is to pick a language and lift all your names from that language. For Stoneslayer I used Hebrew. I made some rules, like all B's became V's. I often changed A's into E's. The particle 'om' means god (instead of 'el'), so lots of names end with that. Some other things like that. By my count, there are 96 separate names (some are used more than once though). Evrom, Matek, Shaleyu, Verutz, Lahilokh, Hayam. They have a sense of coherency, yet none are familiar to the reader.

For Orluvoq I used Greenlandic. It's a base I've essentially never seen in the books I've read. Orluvoq, Naalagaa, Ikingut, Nunapisu, Arsarneq, Arpap, Paarsisoq, Sinik. Once again, all very foreign, but all similar.

If you have multiple cultures, you need to make sure your naming bases are separate. Choose phonemes (basic units of sound) and some rules, then apply them to your names. In Augmentals I have one language that has a sound where they kiss the M. To represent it I use 'mm'. They also have the voiceless lateral fricative, which I represent with 'tl'. These are things that the reader will likely never consciously know, but their subconscious will pick up on the uniformity and whisper to them, "This is a solid book."

Magic Systems

In the earlier days of fantasy, magic was often a given nebulous force that accompanied the story. As the years have progressed, people have conjured up increasingly diverse scenarios and put new sets of constraints on their magic. From this there has arisen some sort of rift in the fantasy community between those who prefer a softer or a harder magic system.

Definition of Magic
I think it’s important that we first define magic. To me, magic is anything that is not possible within the bounds of the reader’s physics. Some people who prefer a soft approach to magic will say that anything that takes a more systematic, scientific approach disqualifies it from being magic. I say that whether or not it’s considered magic by the characters in the book is irrelevant to whether or not it’s magical to the reader. Because all of us live in the same world with the same physics, I think it’s safe to talk about the things outside of our laws under the umbrella term “magic”.

A Call for Mystique
Another argument I see a lot is that magic must have an air of mystique, a sense of wonder, a shroud of mystery. These people are conflating their preference with definitional limitation. That would be the same as saying magic must involve mental exertion, runes, ingredients, demons, handheld conduits, flashing lights, dead gods, temperature changes, incantations, exhaustion, sacrifices, or any other number of requirements. Certainly someone can have favorites, but personal penchants do not nullify all other options.

The Basis of Fantasy
The basis of fantasy and all good speculative fiction is that it poses a question and then explores the answers. The question is almost always in the form of, “How would humans react if they were put into a situation where [blank]?” (Possibilities for the blank: the gods interacted with men, dragons roamed the earth, there were other sapient species, certain people could control the weather?)

We live in a world that has figured out electricity and magnetism, wireless data transmission, nuclear power, space travel, DNA modification, vaccines, and endless other marvels. In a world where magic was relatively widespread, it would require great suspension of disbelief to pretend that that world’s humans hadn’t made any investigations into the nature, limits, and uses of that magic.

Now, there are possibilities of regressions, dark ages, and that their discoveries haven’t advanced very far yet. Maybe a god is keeping them from learning too much. Maybe they’re religious and kill anyone who uses magic outside the prescribed methods. Maybe they live in an extremely harsh environment and don’t have any extra time to devote to study. Maybe magic is only available to very few people. There are many good reasons why the world wouldn’t know very much about the limits of their magic. But human ingenuity, curiosity, and persistence are powerful forces, and I believe that wherever possible, they will have made at least some investigations into the strange powers at play in their world.

The Limitations of Constraints
I believe that constraints inspire more creativity than sheer freedom does. You see it in music when a composer decides, for example, to create something in a whole tone scale, never use the key’s base chord in the progression, write in 5/4, or use at least one augmented chord per measure. Working within limitations allows you to push the boundaries; when working with pure freedom there are no boundaries to push.

I hope the above explains why I lean more toward the hard magic end of the spectrum. Let’s take Sanderson’s Mistborn, specifically the steel push and the iron pull. At its core, these two powers are nothing more than telekinesis. However, the constraints that Sanderson places on them turns them into so much more. These include

• Must be a misting (born with the ability to burn a metal in your stomach)
• Must have your metal in your stomach; once out, so are your powers
• Can only push/pull on metals
• Can only push/pull in a straight, radial line from your center of mass
• Every push/pull reacts with a proportionate pull/push on you

So Sanderson took a very common power, telekinesis, put constraints on it, and turned it into something that’s far more interesting. Battles and puzzles require more creativity. I find that often when the magic is less defined I wonder why a particular magical solution wasn’t applied earlier than it was, or why it wasn’t applied again at a later point.

That being said, some people prefer a less systematic approach, just as some people prefer not to listen to music in 5/4 or music that has an augmented chord in every measure. Both opinions are right for those that hold them.

Conclusion
Both hard and soft magic systems are valid, even if you prefer one over the other. I have read, enjoyed, and written both kinds. However, I typically get more enjoyment out of hard systems, so I tend to use those in my bigger series so I can flex my creativity against the constraints.

Consumers, the Casual Killers

I originally wrote this because I gave a presentation on nuclear power in one of my friend's high school classes, and the students wanted to know how many people died from their energy use—your so-called deathprint. Skip ahead if you don't care about the calculations.

Hey, I ran some calculations for your students. I couldn't find exactly the per capita energy usage for an American, so taking some averages and estimations I went with 90,000 kWh/yr. The deathprint numbers come in deaths per PWh, so I use the equation $$k = \frac{a\ell d}{10^{15}\, Wh}$$ where k is the amount of people you kill over your whole life, a is your annual energy consumption, $\ell$ is your life expectancy, d is the death rate multiplier (variable by energy source). I could have included the 1E15 Watt-hours in d, but it's easier to plug in this way.

Plugging in everything but d gives us $$k = \frac{d(9E10\, Wh/yr)(80\, yr)}{10^{15}\, Wh} = 0.0072d$$ Now it's time to calculate d.

From the eia.gov site, it says that in 2015 the US energy production mix was 32% natural gas, 28% petroleum, 21% coal (see footnote 1), 11% renewables, and nuclear electric 9%. You may notice that's only 91%. The remaining 9% was primarily petroleum imports, so we'll bump our petroleum up to 37%.

So we have $$d = (0.37\times 36000) + (0.32\times 4000) + (0.21\times 15000) + (0.11\times r) + (0.09\times 40) = 17753.6 + (0.11\times r)\, deaths$$
Now we have to figure out r (renewables factor). Using the EIA site again we get 49% is biomass, 25% is hydro (see footnote 2), 19% is wind, 6% is solar, and 2% is geothermal. So (this is just an estimate) $$r = (0.49\times 24000) + (0.25\times 100) + (0.19\times 150) + (0.06\times 440) + (0.02\times 0) = 11839.9$$ I put 0 in on the death rate multiplier for geothermal because I couldn't find any info on it. We plug that in and get $$d = 17753.6 + (0.11\times11839.9) = 19056 \, deaths$$

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Skip to here if you're just looking for a number

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Plugging that into our original equation we find that $$k = 0.0072\times 19056 = {\boxed{\color{#9fc5e8}\text{137 people killed per lifetime}}}$$ If it was 100% nuclear, d would be 40 and k would equal 0.3 people killed per lifetime. That, of course, is factoring in all the major accidents (using outdated technology) and the linear no threshold model, which has been proven to be false. Using updated science, the number would be much lower than 0.3 (see Footnote 3).

Once again, this is using the energy mix from 2015. We all know that the energy mix of 2035 will look pretty different from 2015. But with these numbers we can approximate that the average 16-year-old American has indirectly killed 27 people (or approx. one every 7 months). The actual number is higher than that because a) coal usage peaked in 2008, and b) a lot of energy-intensive processes that we benefit from have been moved to other countries, so those aren't counted in the consumption profile.

If all that energy was 100% nuclear derived, your students would have collaterally killed about 6% of a person each. In other words, it would take 17 students to have killed one person. At this energy consumption rate, you would have to live for 278 years to kill one person. This only accounts for energy production though, nothing about food, technology, or conveniences.

These are just some quick calculations using numbers I found. You (or your students) could do a much more in-depth research project by finding a lot more data points (see Footnote 4). Hope you enjoyed it! Also, you should tell your students to read my books :) I believe they're available at the school library. If not, they're available here.

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Footnote 1 The world average is 100,000 deaths/PWh and the Chinese rate is 170,000 deaths/PWh. I used the US number of 15,000.
Footnote 2 This is the European number which doesn't include the Banqiao dam break that killed 171,000.
Footnote 3 This is infeasible, but a fun thought experiment. Switching over to entirely nuclear would result in a 99.93% reduction of the deathprint. The reduction would be greater if you factored in the performance history of the nuclear navy, which has logged "over 6200 reactor-years of accident-free experience involving 526 nuclear reactor cores over the course of 240 million kilometres, without a single radiological incident, over a period of more than 50 years." (Source)
Footnote 4 Here's the full equation if you want to tweak parameters:$$k = \frac{a\ell}{10^{15}\, Wh}[p_{pt}d_{pt} + p_{ng}d_{ng} + p_{co}d_{co} + p_{nu}d_{nu} + p_{re}(p_{bi}d_{bi} + p_{hy}d_{hy} + p_{wi}d_{wi} + p_{so}d_{so} + p_{gt}d_{gt})]$$ It's kind of a crappy formula because the p values (ha) are the percentages of the energy mix, except the ones in the square brackets are the percentage of the renewable energy mix.

New Novella: Orluvoq

I know I never update this and no one ever reads this, but just in case here we go.

Yesterday I finished writing my novella Orluvoq. It's 30,600 words long (which correlates to about 120 printed pages) and inspired by Inuit (specifically Greenlandic) culture. Here's the blurb:

In the highest north, the world has an end. Black oblivion gapes out forever beyond the plains of rotting snow, the two separated by the infinite drop of an ice cliff holding all the world’s dead.

In the highest north, hunters ride kites into the aurora to fell narwhal from out of the sky. Chandlers set the beast’s tusk in columns of tallow. Shamans exact powers from the burning candles—powers to walk with shadow or the wind, to turn away frostbite and fever, to stay warm on the darkest night in deepest winter.

But the narwhal’s tusk has other powers. Darker powers. When consumed, it floods the devourer with an inimitable high. Once consumed, the devourer will never be satisfied with anything less. Every shaman is taught not to eat the tusk. If forced to choose between healing and warmth or the high, the shaman can’t always be trusted to be stronger than the addiction. 

But not every shaman does as they’re taught.

And so, we follow Orluvoq, a drug-addicted, eight-year-old shaman, as she climbs down the ice cliff at the end of the world to find her dead parents. Will she find answers, or will she only find that her hope is all gone?

 I don't have any information on a publishing date, but I'm sure I'll post here once I do. In the meantime, you can read the beginning here.

I found this picture and thought, "That's Or lu freaking voq."

Anglish

So, good news. I've officially resumed work on Stoneslayer. It's beautiful. I just did a read through with a bit of editing and am sitting at 85,000 words. I expect the finished product to require around 35,000-40,000 more words, so hopefully I'll hit at least 120k with this book. Time and hard work will tell. If I can get my butt in gear I should have the first draft done before the end of August. If not, then hopefully before September's over.

But the other interesting thing is a major series of edits that I made during this read through. See, in this book there's a tribe called the Hanoshites that broke off from the main character's tribe 400 years ago. Because of this, I wanted them to be able to understand each other, but to have distinct dialects. Originally I just had them speaking in sort of an old-timey drawl. But I recently got the idea to have them speak Anglish. Now some of you are thinking, Benny, I think you mean English. But no, Anglish is a purist version of English that only has Germanic roots. Sort of a, "what if Modern English had developed from Old English without any Latin/Greek influence?" Here's an example from the text:

“We of Hanosh like our crowded gladness—though not to the mark of drunken daze; this the Bodings fastly forbid. In eight of the months, each Tent takes their stint throwing a simbleday. Songwrights, craftsmen, cooks, and so forth make show of their knacks. The other four months, the coming of the yeartides, as they’re hight, are the times of highest gladness. The whole of Hanosh gathers and shares in the best of mirthmaking and feed—though I warn thee, thou mightest never need feed again.” He smiled at his quip. “As luck would have it, the Tamez Simbleday lined up flawlessly with thine incoming.”

And that's about what it sounds like. It has a certain elegance to it. But here's the crazy thing. Doing these edits I had to check literally every. Single. Word. To see what its etymology is. The other frustrating thing is that sometimes, there literally aren't any fitting Germanic words for it. One example is tent. Try though I might, I couldn't come up with a suitable substitution. In other instances I had to come up with my own word. Like for encampment I used haltstead.

In the end, I think that the Anglish decision has added a great deal of depth to the work and I'm glad I did it, though it took many days. In those remaining 40k words the Hanoshites will appear yet again, so I'll have to delve into the Anglish Wordbook once more.

A New Plague Cover Reveal

So I sat down today knowing only that I wanted to make a cover for my novelette A New Plague, which, as you can see in the sidebar, is complete. This is what I came up with. It will be out soon after some edits. You can read the intro section, Germ, here. As a brief summary, it's about a man whose job is to make new plagues, and, well, he makes a new plague. Even though it deals with some heavy topics, it has a general jovial air about it. I like to refer to it as a work of grindark.

You're Too Good For Me

There are lots of good things you can say to someone you're in a relationship with. I like you. I love you. You're amazing. I'm glad we met. Et cetera. But there's one thing you always want to avoid saying. I don't deserve you, or another variation, You're too good for me. Never say this.

Now if it slips out a time or two, you're probably still in the clear. But if you say it with any regularity, you're setting yourself up for failure. Because say it enough, and they'll believe it too. One day they're going to say, "Hey, you're right." And they'll leave, and your tears will flow like Niagara.

You should only convey this sentiment if you legitimately believe they should get with someone else. Because when you say you're too good for me, you're also saying you deserve someone better. You're saying, "I believe you would be better off with someone else." Is that what you actually mean? Because that's what you're saying. Tell them enough and they'll believe it.

A New Plague: Germ (chapter from new story)

I got a random idea and wrote this last Friday. It's the prologue to a novelette (hopefully around 15,000 words) I'm calling A New Plague. It will consist of four sections titled Germ, Body, Plague, and Death. I'd like to create some shorter work that will get people interested in reading my longer efforts. I present to you now section one: Germ.

Belit’s eyes danced through the crowd before him. So many people. Browsing. Buying. Bustling.

Breathing.

How could there be so many?

He cleared his throat. “You know what this city needs?”

His companion, Derf, sent him an askance glance. “Enlighten me.”

“A new plague.”

“Belit, no.”

“Belit, yes!” His eyes danced to the pudgy man.

Derf sighed. “It's hardly been a year since the third hellthresh threshed its last.”

“Exactly. Just look how happy they all are.” Repulsive. They had no right.

“Maybe that's because they're not systematically crapping out their intestines in black globs.”

“Precisely. Morale is too high! Who let them get this cheery?”

The plump fellow scrunched his right cheek in an unenthusiastic smirk, then let it fall. “A spunge or
two might have had a hand in that.”

Belit scoffed. Expungers. Their bones could erode. “We need to do something about them eventually
as well.”

Derf pursed his lips. “Something like throw them a banquet? You know your hobby would be cut
woefully short if they weren’t there to stanch the plagues every time.”

“But their hobby would disappear if I did. They need me.” A woman walking by brushed his arm.
Belit shuddered and wiped at the arm. Disgusting.

“Expunging isn’t so much a hobby as it is an occupation,” Derf murmured, rubbing his brow with soft fingers. “Do you really need to pitch in? We recently had the eleventh yellowing that lasted a month, killed forty-eight. The eighth frenzy went nearly six weeks and left opportunity for eighty-nine new graves to be dug.

“Kudda is more a plague to the epidemes than he is to the general populace.” Belit watched two little girls playing with a doll. Nauseating. “You yourself just said he released his eleventh yellowing and it was expunged in a month. How long did my first hellthresh last?”

Derf made his best show of looking uninterested. Probably because he was. “Forty-one months.”

“And the second?”

“Forty-two.”

“And what about our most recent hellthresh?”

“Forty-three.”

“Do you have any idea what it would mean if my fourth hellthresh lasted forty-four months?” He kept his voice low enough to be shielded by the mumble of the multitude, but his eyes threatened to jump out of his skull.

“No.”

Belit glared at him. How he hated the man’s eyes. The way they protruded made him look sickly even when perfectly sound.

“Neither do I.” He turned toward a door in the wall, a sloping thing that started elaborate on the high end and ended decrepit on the short. “All of Dodane, Derf. My plagues reached all of Dodane—even spilling a little into Jubea and Yap. There hasn’t been another pandemic on that scale for over a century. How many died? What was the number?”

Derf wiped his hand on his trousers before grabbing the knob and pulling the door open for Belit. “Five million six hundred thousand twelve. Belit, why are we at this place?”

“And how many are left?” He entered the threshold and was greeted by warm, damp air. Perfect.

“Across Dodane? More than six million. It’s estimated there are several hundred million in the entire earth though.”

“How dare they!” Belit ignored the exquisite right side of the room and trod into the sickly, ramshackle side. He loved the way the walls always looked like they had just been coughed on. “These expungers really need to learn to let nature run its course.”

“And yourself?” Derf asked.

Belit waved a hand. “I already learned that lesson. Now I’m on to bigger and better.”

The pudgy man grabbed his sleeve. “Belit. Why are we here? I assume you didn’t come all the way just for a sip of ale.”

“A sip? I’ll need a mug at the least.” Silly, silly, Derf. Didn’t he know anything about the workings of the world?

“Belit.”

The plague maker stopped.

Though no light came to blind him, Derf squinted. “What are we doing here?”

Belit supposed he’d have to tell the chap at some point. Irritating. “I need to get a germ. I’m going to bond with a new plague.”

Derf’s squinty, stupid eyes widened, making him look more like a fish than ever. “But...that’s… You can’t.”

“No, Derfolte,” said Belit. “You can’t. Kudda can’t. Bialt can’t. But they can’t do much more than make transient diseases, not even worthy of the plague title. Remember Dwastane? The last supreme epideme?”

Derf swallowed uncomfortably. “Belit...no. Don’t you remember how much damage…”

The epideme widened his own eyes and smiled.

“Belit, yes.”

The Unicorn of Unconditional Love

Unicorns are majestic beasts. Their appearance inspires awe. Magic runs through their very veins. Their horns, alicorns, are imbued with sorceries untold. They are never unnecessarily aggressive. We have every reason to revere them.

But they're not real, are they? So while it's fun to consider the possibility, it doesn't pay much to invest in the idea. Now comes my proposition: unconditional romantic love is a unicorn. Those three words are a paradox when juxtaposed. "Unconditional romantic love."

Let's take a look at what unconditional love is. Someone is ugly. You consider their needs at least as important as yours, if not more so. Someone is beautiful. You don't consider their needs any more important than the ugly person. Someone hurts you. Someone helps you. Someone wallows in their own laziness. Someone works as hard as they can. Someone hates you. Someone loves you. Regardless, you love them all equally. It doesn't matter what they can provide for you. It just matters that they exist. That's the only condition of unconditional love.

Now let's take a look at what romantic love is. Someone is ugly. You don't consider them a potential mate. Someone is beautiful. You put them in your sights. Someone hurts you. You distance yourself from them. Someone helps you. You grow more comfortable and grateful. Someone wallows in their own laziness. You disregard them. Someone earns their own. They gain clout in your eyes. Someone hates you. You couldn't imagine living with them. Someone loves you. You love them.

Romantic love only exists when a series of conditions are met. Only when you find someone capable of filling your needs. That may be money, attention, sex, badinage, emotional support, a nice thing to look at—numerous possibilities. A romantic interest only becomes interesting when they can fill a certain percentage of your needs. If that weren't the case, there would be no obsession with finding someone to love. You'd just walk up to somebody, ask them if they wanted to get with you, and they'd say yes. That's what romance would be like if romantic love was unconditional.

But now come the real questions: is all this bad? Are all men pigs? Are all women whores?

No.

Having standards is a good thing. It's okay to care about your own well-being and the well-being of your children (not to mention your partner). That's the entire premise of natural selection. Just keep in mind that you aren't going to find the perfect partner, and neither will your partner.

This post was inspired by the negative connotation for the word 'objectify'. We assess other people on various criteria by objectifying them. Everyone does it. Of course there's a level where you reach too much objectification, but if none existed then no one would ever mate and the species would die.